The information about resuming the factory was confirmed by Pham Van Vuong, director of BSR-BF.

Previously, in June BSR-BF and Tocontap Saigon signed an agreement to resume the operations of the facility.

According to the agreement, Tocontap will supply materials for BSR-BF to process ethanol. The contract will last for 10 years, and in the first year, Tocontap will be in charge of selling BSR-BF’s ethanol products.

From mid-October to the end of the year, BSR-BF plans to process 7,000 cubic metres of ethanol for Tocontap, and the figure will increase to 35,000 cubic metres next year.

Dung Quat Bio-Ethanol Fuel Factory was built in 2009 with the total investment capital of VND2.02 trillion (US$89.38 million) and a designed capacity of 100 million litres of ethanol per year to mix with petrol to form bio-fuel products.

The factory started commercial operations in 2012, and so far it had not gained a significant hold on the market, leading to heavy losses.

The resumption of Dung Quat Bio-Ethanol Fuel will create more E5 fuel for the market, meeting the increasing demand.

In the first six months of this year, total petrol sales across the country reached 4.43 million cu.m, 1.78 million cu.m or 40.18% of which were E5 fuel.

In comparison with the first sixth months of last year, the sales of E5 fuel increased by 31.18% on-year.

Statistics from the Ministry of Finance show that E5 demand in 2019 is 6.6 million cu.m, and 7.1 million cu.m in 2020.

Currently, the bio-fuel ethanol for E5 petrol production comes mainly from two plants owned by Tung Lam Joint Stock Company that have a total annual capacity of 200,000cu.m, which can be used to produce 3.9 million cu.m of E5 a year.

The Binh Phuoc ethanol factory has halted operations since the beginning of 2015 due to inefficiency. The factory opened in December 2012 with the capacity of 300,000 litres of E5 gasoline per day.

If the two ethanol production plants in Dung Quat and Binh Phuoc resume operations, the total ethanol supply of the four plants would be sufficient to cover the E5 petrol demand in 2018.